Appreciating Our Creator--by Linden Malki

The latest discoveries I have read about in both cosmology and biology indicate that not only is the universe an amazing place, but our home planet is possibly unique as a home for life, and life itself is incredibly more complex than was understood even a few decades ago.  I am also becoming more convinced that our Creator is also more complex than we understand. It is not uncommon to hear both believers and nonbelievers question why evil exists, and does it indicate that God is either less powerful or less "nice" that we wish He is. Without claiming more than human logic, I would like to offer a few suspicions.
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I suspect that God has deliberately allowed evil to exist in this world, so that we have the necessity of tapping into His strength to deal with it.  He gives us options: the parable of the sower (Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8) is a basic description of our choices.  There are those who hear and ignore the Word; those who initially listen but it doesn't take root in their lives (I suspect there are those who are willing to live in this mode: not rejecting but not taking it seriously either); those who let it get choked out by the things of the world; and those who listen, accept, and actively seek to grow in it.  And to make it more complicated, even a healthy spiritual relationship is not easy. I have noticed that no matter how much we learn about God, there is no end to our growth on this world. This is consistent with other factors in life as well--the simplest example is that muscles don't grow stronger unless they are stretched; we don't learn without effort and setbacks.  We are finding out that children who are not challenged and allowed to make mistakes and accidents don't grow up with the strengths and skills to deal with real life. C.S. Lewis once commented that God apparently wants Heaven to be populated by all sorts of people of all ages and stages of life. I have long suspected that our bodies are designed to wear out so that we will be willing to trade them in for new ones.

It is also obvious to me that we are all responsible for each other. We can accept the temptations of great evil, and we can accept the knowledge and strength to do great good, both of which are beyond our basic human abilities.  I believe that we will be held responsible for how we treat others, and what they learn from us. God has given us knowledge of how people should be treated and how children should be raised, and again, our shortcomings can bring serious problems, and our following the principles we have been given will bless our families and others.

An important question is whether we appreciate what God offers us: do we recognize the gifts we are given, and the life we were created to live? We are, as Scripture tells us, "fearfully and wonderfully made".  Do we thank God for not only who He made us to be, but the awareness of both the good He gives and the warnings of the evil that we need to deal with?  I suspect that evil is like a boxer's punching bag: if we control it, it will make us stronger; if we don't, it will knock us out. Many of the things that we share this planet with have elements of both good and evil: the wolves in Yellowstone

Park hunt the deer--but when the park authorities eliminated the wolves, the deer overran their food supply. Life is a balance--we can catch and eat sharks--but they can catch and eat us as well. In the proper balance, it works.